


Vashti

by Thistlerose



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Extras, Gen, Judaism, Purim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-10
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim starts to tell Gaila about Purim.  One character in particular captures her attention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vashti

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sansets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansets/gifts).



Gaila wanted to know the story of Purim – not completely out of the blue, since Chekov had recently been sighing about his grandmother’s poppy seed hamantaschen – so Jim started telling it to her. He figured he’d give her the basic story – Esther and Mordecai, the king and his wicked vizier – then jump into the _actual_ history of the Jews in Ancient Persia, since he’d spent so much time as a boy looking it up, only to discover that none of the pretty girls in his Hebrew school class were interested in his extensive knowledge of the period.

He hadn’t gotten very far – he’d barely reached the part about Mordecai beseeching his cousin Esther to enter the king’s beauty contest – when Gaila interrupted. 

“What happened to Vashti?” she asked. She seemed genuinely concerned.

“Well,” said Jim, “like I said, he listened to his ministers, who told him to get rid of her—”

“But did he _kill_ her? Or did he just banish her?”

“I don’t know,” Jim told her honestly. “The Megillah – that’s the text of the Purim story – doesn’t say. Some people think she was put to death, other people say she was exiled.” Jim had always preferred exile, even if it struck him as unlikely, given the times. His mother had too, he remembered. He could understand Gaila’s interest in Vashti, the queen who refused to dance naked for her drunken husband and his dinner guests, and he resolved not to tell her about some of the more negative things he’d heard about the ancient queen.

“She shouldn’t have been put to death,” Gaila was saying, her fingers twisting a bit fretfully at her long red curls. “If she didn’t want to dance, he shouldn’t have tried to make her.”

“No,” Jim agreed, with a gentle, knowing smile, “she shouldn’t have.”

“Where do you suppose she went, after she was banished? Assuming she was banished and not killed,” she added.

“Well,” said Jim, leaning back in his chair, and thinking that he just might get to delve into his knowledge of Ancient Persia – finally, “I guess there were lots of places a brave, proud, beautiful woman could go.”

“Tell me about them, please,” said Gaila.

03/10/2012


End file.
